Still not convinced that a strategic social media plan can help grow your business? Well there are over 800 small business owners who beg to differ. According to the Wall Street Journal and Vistage International, six out of 10 small-business owners say they believe social-media tools are valuable to their company’s growth.

In the survey, conducted online last month among businesses with less than $20 million in annual revenue, 41 percent of small business owners declared LinkedIn as the most valuable social marketing tool when it comes to interacting with both existing and potential customers.

Other key findings:

• Only three percent of 835 business owners surveyed said Twitter had the most potential to help their companies.
• Sixteen percent of business owners picked YouTube.
• Fourteen percent of business owners still believe Facebook provides the best bang for their marketing dollars.

As a professional-networking service, LinkedIn also helps small business owners with a variety of other functions such as generating leads to product development.

The good news, according to the SMB Group, is that the overall use of social media is up from 44 to 53 percent among small businesses (1-99 employees) and up from 52 to 63 percent among medium businesses (100-999 employees). The bad news, however, is that many businesses continue to take a haphazard approach to social media marketing.

“The needle for SMBs [Small and Medium Businesses] using social media as part of a planned, corporate strategy has barely moved at all,” said SMB Group Founder and Partner Sanjeev Aggarwal. “More SMBs are using social media, but they lack the solutions, expertise and guidance to integrate them with other business processes and use them more effectively in their businesses.”

In the 2012 Small and Medium Social Business Study, the SMB Group found that small and medium businesses that use social media strategically are more satisfied with the results than ad hoc users, who are more skeptical about the value of social media. The study also shows that businesses that use social media as part of a planned corporate approach are two times more likely to anticipate revenue growth than ad hoc users.

Source: The SMB Group

Developed in partnership with CRM Essentials, the 2012 Small and Medium Social Business Study assesses how and why small and medium businesses (SMB) are using social media in their businesses today. The study also provides trending analysis based on comparison with SMB Group’s 2011 Small and Medium Social Business Study.

This year is expected to be a golden one for social media marketing. After all, 2012 became the year of discovery for most businesses. According to Creotivo’s Infographic 100 Social Networking Statistics & Facts for 2012, 62 percent of marketers said that social media became one of the most important aspects to their marketing campaigns within the last six months.

And one of the most important lessons learned for many marketers in 2012 was that delivering online content can be the most cost-effective and time-effective part of the marketing mix. Over 70 percent of marketers saw an increase in web traffic after investing just six hours per week on social media.

Also in 2012, social media marketing for businesses became a necessity, not an option. Creotivo found 34 percent of medium and 27 percent of small businesses used social media to market their products and services last year.

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The Marketing mix is a set of four decisions which need to be taken before launching any new product/business. These variables are also known as the 4 P’s of marketing.

1. Product2. Price 3. Place4. Promotions

1) Product – The first thing you need, if you want to start a business, is a product.
What product are you selling? What would be the quality of your product? Which features are different from the market? What is the USP of the product?
Whether the product will be branded as sub brand or completely new?
What are the secondary products which can be sold along with your product/service? It may even be beneficial to team up with a complimentary business that will help both of you grow.

2) Pricing –Major consideration in pricing is the costing of the product, the advertising and marketing expenses, any price fluctuations in the market…